Sony Srsm30Whi Travel Speakers (White)

Comment: I've owned these speakers for 4 years now and they still work great. Battery life is excellent, I rarely need to change the batteries. I use rechargeable batteries and they work fine. Sound quality isn't "full" but adequate for their size. Very compact and due to the fact that they are an older model I have to give them credit for building a reliable device. I'm looking to upgrade for more bass now that technology has advanced with these types of speakers, but these will always be around as my backup.

+ battery life
+ size/portability
+ quality built

- sound not as full as other systems
- wires are annoying to deal with sometimes

Comment: I bought these for $50 at Best Buy a couple years ago to use with my laptop. The sound is barely better, certainly not worth the cost. The sound is HORRIBLE for music. AT VERY low volumes it is ok, but at a level suitable for music there is a horrible crackling noise. If you're looking for travel speakers, get some with depth. These are tall, skinny, and pretty flat. Speakers with more depth offer better bass response than those that are flat. These don't have any bass to speak of. I will say that I love the size and portability. They're small, and the clip together. It runs off 3AAA batteries, which is great for travel. If only they provided sound better than what my laptop already provides...
I would buy either the Chill Pill Mobile Speakers or the Altec Lansing Orbit. I've hear both, and they are much better.

Comment: I had hoped to use these speakers with my Transcend 2 Gig MP3 player that has a good digital tuner. We have difficulty getting NPR in our area & I hoped these, listed as "shielded," would work as a backup to a pair of Creative speakers that came bundled with a sound card back in the 90's. All I got was noise & crackle, even with extending the output wire's range from the speakers. They're too much money for what they are, even the connecting/output wires are of poor quality.

Comment: I recently bought these on clearance at a local brick-and-mortar. I'm not an audiophile and my needs were minimal, but ultimately I came to the conclusion that the sound quality from these speakers is pretty bad, especially considering these are active (i.e., amplifying) units.

I use the word "ultimately" because initially I was satisfied, but I soon realized that I was having a hard time really enjoying my music because of the poor sound quality from these speakers. Like others have said, sound from the M30 is best described as tinny and far-off; prototypical of cheap single-driver satellite speakers. Honestly, the only advantage these particular speakers give over passive units is a little more volume- the M30 still produces zero bass.

Also, these speakers have odd footprints that make them easily tipped over. It might sound like I'm knit-picking, but if you go against reviews and buy these, you'll probably find this problem rather irritating, especially if you're setting the speakers up on a small space (say, on a little desk, next to your laptop).

If you're looking for decent quality portable speakers, I'd recommend looking into the following:

*JBL On Tour Portable Speaker System
*Audio Source DB5
*Altec Lansing iM-237 Orbit Ultraportable
*Genius SP-i200 Portable Speakers
*Nokia MD-4

Comment: Sony needs stop making these speakers or take the word travel out the name. The volume on these are lousy. If you want to hear them good go to a quiet room and be very quiet. I wouldn't buy these again.